Hold (a) Fast

(A version of following article was published in the November/December of live magazine. Check them out at www.baptistwomen.com)

The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but the quickest way to end a conversation between Christians is to suggest a fast. No one—excepting perhaps small children with food aversions—wants to do it. The word is more likely to conjure memories of yellow lab requisition forms and having blood drawn than a divine encounter. Fasting is an old school spiritual discipline that seems out of step with the current era. Unless, of course, you’re a fitness guru chronicling your progress on Instagram—then Intermittent Fasting (IF) is all the rage. We might be willing to fast for medical necessity or physical transformation, but spiritual formation is a harder sell. We don’t know exactly what we’ll find there. Besides, fasting is optional and its effects are more intangible than Instagramable.

Though, perhaps, if our situations are particularly dire, we might consider it as a desperate Hail Mary ploy; a last ditch effort to get God to move when we have exhausted every other option. Even then, though—even when all is darkening around us—the fridge seems more comforting than the fast. The reason for this is simple, fasting removes your natural coping mechanisms so that only God remains. All the noise of life fades into the background as the near constant reminder of hunger points to the One you are seeking. Fasting is travelling a narrow path at a high altitude. Each step—each moment—requires both concentration and exertion. It’s physical effort for a spiritual result. When you think about it, there isn’t much else like it. 

And, like many of the ways of God, fasting is a paradox. It is the conscious effort of subverting physical needs for the purpose of being fed. It is a moment within a moment. A secret thing between you and God. A conversation. A communion. A snuggle under His arm for comfort and rest. It is pressing pause on all that is pressing. The meals to be made, the chores to do, and the errands to run all fade into lower resolution while the spiritual conversation comes into sharper focus. It is an exchange of priorities. It is an act of faith that agrees that, ‘Man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ We can hear those words from Jesus and trust that they are true—it is another thing to hunger to hear the Word speaking particularly to us alone

The trouble with the spiritual disciplines is that we turn them into religious duties because we do not know what they are for. We get caught up in the details— wondering if we can still have our coffee during a fast so as to avoid a caffeine headache—rather than rejoicing in the freedom being loosed in our lives. It is in the heart of God to free His people from every chain that binds, every burden that crushes with its weight, and every evil oppression that torments.  It is not His heart to tie us up with the legalistic details of when and how.

Is not the time without eating which I choose, a time to take off the chains of sin, and to take the heavy load of sin off the neck? Is it not a time to let those who suffer under a sinful power go free, and to break every load from their neck? (Isaiah 58:6 NLV)

The purpose—as always—is freedom. It is our mental gymnastics—the never ending internal monologue— that convinces us that the spiritual disciplines are about lack, rather than abundance. We fast to feast because the words proceeding from the mouth of God are better.